I’ll try being nicer if you try being smarter!

I didn’t call my dad on Father’s Day. I didn’t call my mom on Mother’s Day back in May, either. I didn’t send either of them a card. I didn’t send them an e-card. I didn’t arrange for a barbershop quartet to serenade them at their respective workplaces. I didn’t send gift cards to their favourite restaurants. I did nothing. In essence, I suppose I snubbed them. I am a bad daughter. Or so Hallmark tells me.

People are shocked when I inform them that I don’t talk to my mom really, and that I talk to my dad on the sly. My mom doesn’t know we talk. If she did, it would be bad. This is the first year I did not partake in this completely ludicrous ‘holiday’ for my parents. I’m not sure I agree with being forced to thank people for making their own choice and then getting angry over it. My parents chose to have me. I know this, because if they hadn’t wanted me, they probably wouldn’t have continued on with my brother after me. They had a child, knowing it’s a crapshoot, and they got me. In all honesty, I was a good kid, with my biggest downfall probably being too smart for my own good. I didn’t get in trouble, I didn’t do stupid things, I didn’t try to create potions in the bathtub, I didn’t break much stuff, I went to bed when I was told, I got good marks, blah blah blah. They got a good one with me, relatively. They made their choice, they got pregnant, they got me. From there, it gets a little sticky.

We don’t see eye to eye. Ever. In fact, my maternal unit and I have one of the worst mother daughter relationships that I am aware of. Yet, she still expects me to call on Mother’s Day and tell her what a winner I was in the parental lottery. Even though she knows that the fake ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ call I will make in my montone, unenthusiastic voice will only turn into an argument after she sarcastically instructs me not to sound too excited to be talking to her. Frankly, I’d rather avoid it. So I did.

This resulted in me being unable to call my dad on Father’s Day. If I would have called, my mom would have lost it. Nevermind the fact that I never really spoke to my dad til I was in my mid-teens. I should still pay the expensive cell phone long distance rates to say three words…Happy Father’s Day!…..followed by an awkward silence that could probably be filled easier by two strangers.

I’m not sure I believe in straining an already strained relationship so that the marketing geniuses at Hallmark can sell an extra corny card or two, and so that the idiots at Canada Post (see here) can get paid overtime while sorting millions of pink and red envelopes carrying forced messages of a Happy Randomly Chosen Parent Acknowledgement Day.

Yeah, I’m bitter. I know. But it irks me when people insist that I should let it go. Their only argument seems to be ‘but it’s your parents!’ as though this automatically canonizes them and casts a saintly glow behind them, causing their halo’s to sparkle. Whoops, there’s that bitter thing again. Maybe my whole point of this post is to help people in shitty relationships with their parents realize that simply because you are their flesh and blood does not excuse them from any wrongs that they may have committed. They are adults, and they have been for their childs entire life. What other dysfunctional relationship with perhaps a cruel, rude, spiteful person would be celebrated? None. Parents shouldn’t be exempt from their mistakes and their continuing mistreatment. Yes, it’s a chip on my shoulder. Hopefully someone else will realize that they are simply adults too, and don’t necessarily deserve praise for something they may have done a shitty job at. I realized it. And I took a stand (insert bravado/sarcasm here). I took a stand by doing nothing. By not calling. It’s the best kind of action there is. Passive aggressive.